US jobless claims surge to 450,000

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Thursday, September 27 8:48 PM SGT

US jobless claims surge to 450,000

WASHINGTON, Sept 27 (AFP) -

The number of people making new US unemployment benefit claims soared by 58,000 to a nine-year high of 450,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The total, the highest number since the week ended July 25, 1992, exceeded Wall Street analysts' expectations for a figure of 440,000 in the week to September 22.

It is hard to quantify the impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, a Labor Department spokeswoman said. But she added that the number of new claims had surged 11,000 in raw figures in New York state.

-- PHO (owennos@bigfoot.com), September 27, 2001


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